Browsers

Regular readers will know I’m a big fan of Opera (see my previous review). I was delighted, therefore, to see that Opera 9.5 has been released to the wild.

Since the time of my earlier review, I’ve moved from the world of Windows to the delights of Mac. As a result, I’ve also had the chance to discover Safari (yes, I know it’s available for Windows, but I could never really get on with the fonts). As a result, although I’m still a big fan of Opera, I do find myself using Safari more and more.

Back to Opera. I love the new look. I know a lot of people have complained that it looks too dark, but I love it. On a more practical level, Opera are now using a new version of their browser engine. And it’s fast. Very fast.

All of my old favourite features, such as built-in support for mouse gestures, are still there. The only issue I have (still) is that some sites, in particular some of the Google apps (i.e. Calendar and Docs) still don’t render properly. I use these sites/apps all the time, so this is not good.

I am continuing to use Opera for surfing and if they can manage to get Google Apps working properly, I’d most likely switch back for good.

Head over to opera.com, grab the free download and let me know what you think.

Firefox 3 Beta 1 is now available for download from the Mozilla Developer Center.

I’ve been playing with it for a few hours and can make the following observations:

1. It’s fast
2. Virtually none of the extensions have yet been ported (understandably), but 2 of my favourites - Roboform and Stumbleupon - work fine. This may explain 1. above
3. It’s leaving a smaller footprint than Firefox 2. FF3’s been running for about 4 hours and is running at about 100Mb. FF2 after that time would’ve been at least 250Mb. So, it looks like they’re starting to address the memory leaks. Of course, the lack of extensions also means a lack of memory leaks from them, which helps.

Visually, it’s pretty much identical to Firefox 2.

Well worth a look as a first Beta and it’ll been interesting to see how it develops.

So far this week we’ve had IMAP added to Gmail, the 2.4 release of The Gimp and now Opera has added “Opera Link” to their browsers.

Opera has long been my favourite browser (you can read my review to see why) and it just goes from strength to strength with each new release. Today, they have announced the addition of Opera Link to their browsers. With Opera Link, all your bookmarks, speedlinks etc are synchronised with your My Opera account. So, if you have Opera at work and Opera at home, any bookmarks you add in one place will be reflected on the other. Even better, the sync also works with Opera Mini Beta 3, so your mobile device will always be up to date with your most recent links.

Need to use a different browser but still want access to your links? Simpy go to the Opera Link page of your My Opera account and they’re all there for you. And it looks like sharing is on the way, too. Watch out del.icio.us?

You’ll need Opera 9.5 to take advantage of Opera Link on your desktop and Opera Mini Beta 3 for your mobile device.

Keep up the good work, Opera.

Flock have released version 0.9 beta of their web browser as a Release Candidate.

I’ve been trying it over the last day or so and whilst it retains all that was unique about Flock from its initial release, it’s added some new touches.

The obvious of these is the “My World” tab which opens when you launch the browser. This is, effectively, a very cut down version of NetVibes, functionality wise. It contains Favorite Sites, Favorite Feeds (which links to the updated internal news reader) and Favorite Media. I’ll have to use these some more before I’m convinced they’re better than my normal tools, e.g. Google Reader.

It has a brand new theme which looks pretty slick, but obviously adds nothing functionality wise.

They’ve added Ma.gnolia to the favorites sharing, and dropped (their word!) Shadows, although no explanation has been given.

There are more blog services provided for the built-in blog editor, although my initial impressions are that it’s still nowhere near as flexible as Windows Live Writer.

It has retained the excellent photo bar (now named the Media Minibar, although I couldn’t get it to dispense any drinks) making it very easy to drag photos from, say, your Flickr account into a document.

It’s early days, but my initial thoughts are that there’s some good stuff in there, but nothing eye-popping. I can’t see me stopping using my current news reader or my current blog editor. Firefox has plenty of extensions to allow me to use my del.icio.us account as I want to. My World’s not a patch on NetVibes or any other number of aggregators. I’ll keep trying it for now, but I won’t be throwing away my existing suite of apps just yet.

In something of a surprise move (for me, at least!), Apple has released a version of their Safari web browser for Windows. My first impressions are pretty favourable, primarily in the rendering speed.

Here’s a screenshot of BestFreeApps in Safari for Windows:

I’ll write a review when I’ve had some more time with it. If you want to have a play with it, you can download it from the Apple web site, but it’s pretty busy right now

Technorati Tags: apple safari for windows

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Please note this is a review of the latest (as of the 15th June, 2006) beta release of Opera.

I’ve been a long time user/admirer of Opera. I even paid for it back in the days when they offered either a free, advert subsidised version or a paid-for, ad-free version.

I think it has something to do with my desire to see the underdog to succeed. But, it also has a lot to do with the fact that Opera is one very slick browser. It has it’s faults, for sure. For instance, it has difficulty rendering some big-name sites. Having said that, it’s more an issue with the sites in question using non-standard coding techniques than it is a fault of Opera.

Browsing the web with Opera is a little like driving a Ferrari. I’ve done no specific speed comparison tests, but you just know when using it that you’re browsing faster than you ever have before. It makes the whole experience much more enjoyable.

Now, onto specifics. I know you can get Firefox extensions to force it do most, if not all of the following (and also with some other browsers), but this is all straight out of the box with Opera:

• Mouse gestures - right-click/drag has always been my preferred mode for web page navigation
• Tabbed browsing - very nicely implemented, with each tab having it’s own “close” button - should be standard on every browser You can force new windows to open as a new tab if required
• Search from the address bar - simply type “g bestfreeapps” to do a Google search, “e telescopes” for an eBay search etc. You can also define your own search shortcuts
• Feed Reader - subscribe to any RSS feeds and read them using a very intuitive email-like page
  IRC chat - terrifically easy to setup and use IRC client. Supports smiles
• Per-page settings - you can set specific parameters, such as browser identification, on a per-page basis
• Private data deletion - allows you to delete cookies, page history, file transfer history etc on demand
• Voice operated browsing - a fantastic touch of functionality for those who are not able to take full advantage of the keyboard/mouse, Opera can be controlled by voice and can also be configured to generate speech from the content of web pages
• Tab previews - if you’re looking at a page in one tab, you can get a preview of what’s in any of the other tabs by simply hovering the mouse cursor over the tab
• Widgets - Opera 9 now supports Widgets, i.e. small applications that can be placed anywhere on-screen and shown/hidden at will. Not one of my favourite features, but to each their own
• Almost my most favourite feature - Paste and Go! Once you have a URL in your clipboard, right-click the address field, select “Paste and go” and Opera will paste the url and emulate pressing Return for you, hence loading the page - this is so simple, yet so good!
• If you are, say, looking in the 2nd tab, then click a link to open another tab, then close that newly opened tab, Opera focuses back on the tab you started with, rather than the last tab in the list. Another of my favourite features

In addition to all the above, Opera has possibly the worlds best and most misunderstood email client. I will be covering this in a later review, but check it out if you get the chance. It’s the closest I’ve seen to a desktop equivalent of GMail (also to be reviewed later).

Oh, and did I mention it was fast?

 
Main Opera screen, with 2 tabs open

 
Close up of the tabs are, showing the close boxes

 
Opera’s useful feed reader